Influencing public policy

MLS Professor Miranda Stewart was recognised in the Australian Financial Review/Qantas 100 Women of Influence 2018 awards for her contribution to public policy.

MLS Professor Miranda Stewart was recognised in the Australian Financial Review/Qantas 100 Women of Influence 2018 awards for her contribution to public policy. The awards, which started in 2013 and this year attracted more than 850 nominations, celebrates the contribution of a diverse group of women championing change in business and society.

Miranda Stewart
Professor Miranda Stewart. Image: supplied.

MLS alumnae Sheree Rubinstein, Jenny Taing, Prue Gilbert, Tania De Jong and Kim Brennan were also recognised in categories spanning young leaders; board and management; diversity and inclusion; and arts, culture and sport.

Stewart says it was an honour to be named in the list and credits her recognition to her policy influence and public engagement on tax reform.

“Good tax policy is important for the resilience of Australia’s government and economic prosperity, and we also need to get tax and welfare rules right to support gender equality,” she says.

“It was great to see the AFR recognition of women leading across all fields of endeavour in the list this year.”

“The well-deserved overall winner was Professor Megan Davis from UNSW, who was recognised for her extraordinary leadership on the recognition of Indigenous Australians and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.”

Stewart has had a distinguished academic career in tax law and policy, as well as working in the private sector and government. She has returned to Melbourne Law School after a three-year term as inaugural Director of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University.

From January, Stewart will take on the leadership of the Tax Group and the Master of Tax program in the Melbourne Law Masters.

“In this time of rapid change in global tax developments, I am excited to teach a new subject called ‘Current Issues in International Tax,’ which will be offered as an intensive in May next year,” she says.

“I look forward to supporting great colleagues and adjunct faculty who teach into more than 20 subjects in our graduate tax program.”

Among Stewart’s current research is an Australian Research Council project on multinational tax avoidance, investigating whether law reforms implemented in the last few years have had any effect on corporate behaviour.

Stewart is the Chair of the Asia Pacific Committee of the International Fiscal Association which will host its regional conference on tax in the global digital economy in Melbourne in 2019. As co-editor of the Austaxpolicy.com blog, Stewart promotes new tax and welfare research from around the world to policy makers and the public.

This article originally appeared in MLS News, Issue 20, November 2018